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HandyNZL

V8 Supercars / Supertourers

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Thanks for clearing that up Craig - I'd heard from Midweek Motorsport that the TV situation wasn't great. I didn't know it was that bad. Shame to hear, but I don't think there is any racing series at the moment without problems.

Like the Mercedes - I think that they'll probably be propping up the rear of the grid this year, but both the Nissan and Mercedes will add some diversity if nothing else.

Ingall's livery. He will retire at the end of this season:

02132013%20-%20Supercheap%20Auto%20Racing%20Unveil%2012.jpg

Looking forward to seeing the Red Bull livery on the 888 cars. Was never a fan of the Vodafone colours, but got a feeling that they'll look a lot nicer in Red Bull guise.

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The Mercedes cars look a lot better (in my opinion) in real life than they did on that mock-up Craig posted:

531464_10151289053794506_1509180849_n.jpg

285775_10151289053619506_1906565937_n.jpg

v8sc13021402.jpg

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Are they using a common body shape this year? The cars don't seem to reflect the shapes of the production ones, and they all seem similar. Not sure if that's by design, or just everyone moving toward the same ideal.

Just from appearance, it looks like it's sort of a NASCAR-like idea: certain areas of customization for brand identity and aerodynamic exploitation, with the bulk of it being to a pretty tight shape.

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They have their own body shapes, and it's just coincidence that they look the same(ish). Sometimes it's hard on the road these days to pick the difference between a Holden and a Ford Falcon from a distance when you're driving, but once they are within a few hundy metres you can tell them apart with a glance pretty much.

The SV8's of course have a few body panels that are control, like the the front splitter and rear diffuser panel, but after that, it's all up to the manufacturer.

Cars are just similar as they all have the same design goal at the end of the day...form follows function and all that.

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Thanks.

I was curious because that Mercedes doesn't look like much of anything at all. Then again, I'm not on Australian roads, and people around here seem to drive Jaguars and BMWs more than any other luxury sedan.

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Qualifying for the Clipsal 500 starts this arvo, and the TV deals are falling into place...NZ even gets the races live for the first time in donkey's (used to just be Bathurst and the NZ round that were live).

Anyways, Shane van Gisbergen (the d#ck) is being stopped by a possible injunction on racing...this because the silly lad thought last year to not honour his contract with Stone Brothers Racing (the SP tools sponsored team) when they switched to Erebus / Mercedes cars. SvG decides V8's aren't for him and he is going to retire at 23 or 24 years old or however young and rash he is....

...then just a few weeks before first testing gets underway, he says he's back and racing for Tekno motorsports...so now SBR are saying he is in breach of his contract release and they will oppose him racing. Scandal!

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Followed the SVG thing closely. It does seem very bizarre how there was that big send off for him at the end of last season...then only a few weeks later it emerges he's signed for a different team. It has been strange since the start - as one of the championship's talented youngsters, it was a shock that he was prepared to step away from it all. Did the Mercedes thing have anything to do with it?

It's a mess and I do feel sorry for him, because we all have moments of indecision in our lives, particularly when we're young, but in another way, you've got to say this was entirely self-inflicted and he has only got himself to blame. Hopefully they manage to sort it out and come to some sort of mutual agreement, whether that's a settlement for SBR or whatever, but I fear that this could rumble on for quite some time which is a shame for the championship.

Interested to see how Stoner does in the development series. From the little I've read from the V8SC Facebook page, he seemed to pick up pace quite quickly in the two practice sessions. Hopefully he can have a strong run this season, but he's got a lot to learn making a transition from two wheels to four. It is good to read about though - he's probably the first leading bike guy to make that transition for some time. I know Rossi and Lorenzo have tried things on four wheels, but nothing quite as serious as this.

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An injunction on racing...I'd love to read the terms of his contract. I've never heard of a non-compete clause in a racing contract stateside, and I'm not sure courts here would really uphold it because it's not "reasonable in geographic and temporal scope" to not allow someone to race. Moreover, sports are a whole other environment, and if you had non-competes for the drivers, it would damage the competition within the sport and be a cheap way to try to get wins; I'd think that, in the context of a sport, it's hard to uphold. They're most effective when it's someone who might have a client list, for example, and they don't want them to take all the clients with them.

That said, stick-and-ball sports, where there are a team of athletes as opposed to just one driver (not discrediting the teams supporting the driver; I just mean in terms of who can "score the points" on "the field"), can enforce contracts that prevent a player from playing on another team, even if the player refuses to play for that particular team. I've just never seen it in racing before and I think it's a different scenario based on players' associations etc. in U.S. sports and team suspensions.

I'm not an Australian lawyer, so maybe it's different, but I have no idea how you'd enforce an injunction on someone's participation in auto races of any kind. I suspect there are much better remedies, too. It would be more of a standard practice to sue for damages, which would mostly be the costs of hiring a new driver, and any additional salary they are paying that driver on top of what SVG would have gotten.

Weird.

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From reading between the lines, he had a clause in his release contract (not his race contract) that he would not race in V8 Supercars this year. At the time he said he was going to race in our V8 Supertourers which is what V8 Supercars are moving to this year as their Car of the Future. (we've had 'em for two years, so once again, Aussie is stealing from Kiwi's, just like pavlova, Phar Lap, Lord of the Rings (it was Australasian don't you know), and Russell Crowe)

He had just signed for three years with SBR, then virtually less than a month later he want out of the contract. This coincided with the Mercedes deal...SvG said he signed to race Fords not Merc's and the team was changing, so therefore he wanted out.

Now he wants back in, albeit with a smaller "family" style of team (and small is a relative term when it is a multi multi millionaire that owns the team and is rich enough to go racing without sponsorship...by choice.

SvG, by all reports, is not too well liked amongst the drivers in the first instance, so these drama's don't go far in improving that.

And to top it off, he got on pole yesterday for the Clipsal 500.

http://www.v8supercars.com.au/news/svg-in-the-spotlight-again-with-clipsal-500-pole

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So the Nissans are smokey and the Mercs burn your foot, starting on the 1st row becomes a disadvantage, Holden still out front.

Thats what I learnt today from V8SC

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Bit of a naff race really. Though a highlight was young Scotty McLoughlin getting 6th. Kid's (at 19) got a future.

And Lowndes is now equal first in all time wins on 90 with Mark Skaife. Could move into the lead tomorrow with race 2.

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Still not sure they'd enforce it in a rescinding contract. That's based on the assumption that Australia, like the U.S., operates mostly on centuries-old English common law.

I would assume they're threatening the injunction because they know their damages are pretty small. Going after damages wouldn't scare SVG, but maybe they can trick him into thinking they'll get the injunction and scare him into a settlement above the fair amount. Just my guess, but again, I'm way too American to understand.

I saw the opening stint of the race or so. Too bad you guys don't like Shane, because I've always just blindly supported the Pet Foods Commodore. I do like the Nissans, of course, and Dean Fiore's purple and yellow Holden. I think the Mercedes is ugly and understand why van Gisbergen didn't want to be part of that experiment in year one, but I'll say this: it has the nicest-sounding engine from what I heard.

Sure is nice to watch touring car racing where they aren't spinning every corner. Sometimes you forget that hard racing doesn't mean silly racing!

Caught the Dunlop Series race (I think that's what you call it), too. Casey Stoner was in it. Those Komatsu decals make the headlights look like they're from the Commodore from many years ago and that bothers me so I was hoping they'd show him less. :P

Made a few decent overtakes.

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I've not seen the race yet, just read the report on Autosport. Hoping it gets uploaded to the official YouTube account soon.

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From maybe facing a legal challenge, to a stuffed up race start in race one, SvG follows up on Sunday by claiming a second pole for the weekend, and then took it home for the win, leading 51 of the 78 laps. And a cracker last 12 laps after the SC period. Pity that both Kelly brothers got hammered in the same accident, with one Nissan looking more Tida than Ultima...

The COTF cars are good - playing field is more open, so I expect a good season (which will be a change from the yawn fests of the last few years - only two teams have won the last thirty odd races.)

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Sounds like a much better race than yesterday. Hopefully I'll get to see some of it soon.

I did manage to get to see a bit of qualifying though. It was on at 1am our time, and good to see the V8's are now streaming stuff on their official website. That's the way that motorsport (in fact, any sport in general) should be heading. Online coverage is more important than TV coverage these days.

Anyway, I digress. I was amazed at how close it was and how quickly the times at the top were changing. Saw the tangle between Fabian Coulthard and Garth Tander too, which ended up with a confrontation in the pits and Tander telling him to turn his ****ing lights on. Gave me a chuckle at that time in a morning. tongue.png

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Tander actually walked past Coulthards car and knocked off Fabians driverside mirror. Those cheeky drivers.

TBH, Tander was throwing his weight around a bit....I'm Mr Big sort of thing. Was trying to muscle Scott McLaughlin and he ended up paying for it big time by rolling the tyre off the rim...nur nur.

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